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The BBC is reporting that anti-terror Police officers in London have been given live access to the "congestion charge cameras", allowing them to view and track vehicles in real time. This is a change from the original procedure that required them to apply for access on a case-by-case basis. "Under the new rules, anti-terror officers will be able to view pictures in "real time" from Transport for London's (Tfl) 1,500 cameras, which use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology to link cars with owners' details. But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed."

Bruce Schneier has a nice piece on this sort of thing - the risks of data re-use [schneier.com] - in his latest newsletter.

We learned the news in March: Contrary to decades of denials, the U.S. Census Bureau used individual records to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The Census Bureau normally is prohibited by law from revealing data that could be linked to specific individuals; the law exists to encourage people to answer census questions accurately and without fear. And while the Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily suspended that protection in order to locate Japanese-Americans, the Census Bureau had maintained that it only provided general information about neighborhoods.
New research proves they were lying.

It's worth bearing in mind these sort of things, especially when the British government is still pressing, full-steam ahead with the invasive and unwarranted National Identity Register [no2id.net] (and ID Card).

Have you tried to buy Sudafed (not the new fake adrenaline precursor crap, but the kind that's actually pseudoephedrine) in the last year or so? The newest version of the Patriot Act includes a section intended to cut down on meth production by placing restrictions on this *unscheduled* and rather effective sinus medicine. How does the regulation of pseudoephedrine have anything to do with national security? It's Title VII of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2006, and here's a link: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp1 09&sid=cp109WUZzm&refer=&r_n=hr333.109&item=&sel=T OC_218802& [loc.gov]

Jose Padilla was a Chicago street gang member originally from Brooklyn who converted to Islam while in prison. He was arrested, declared an "enemy combatant," and transferred to a military brig in South Carolina. He was denied due process, and he's an American citizen. The wikipedia article agrees with what I've read elsewhere.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(al leged_terrorist) [wikipedia.org]

These are just two examples. There are many more (the domestic wiretapping?) but these are the two that come to mind readily.

I think using these public surveillance systems are only acceptable if all the video is archived and the public has access to them

The public does have access to them. In the UK, we have the Data Protection Act, which basically boils down to giving you the right to request any information an organisation may have about you, including CCTV tapes. You may have to pay a handling fee of £10 maximum, but for that you might well end up with literally a lorryload of tapes and paperwork. If they don't pony up, then it's big fines time.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the change was needed to deal with the "enduring vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London".

That "enduring threat" seems to consist of two recent attempts, both bungled by incompetent notscaryists, to let off car bombs in central London using previously unknown vehicles. Remind me how tracking everyone everywhere is going to do anything whatsoever to prevent that happening again?

Well, those cars must have previously been known by the congestion charging system unless they were driven in at night from outside of London and have never previously been in London.Even then, speeding tickets? Parking tickets? license registration? MOT?

It's almost impossible for a car to stay anonymous when in the UK and especially in London, but attaching this car to a terrorist or terrorist suspect is something which needs active human integration, which is why the police are being given access to the n

[Deep in the top secret control room]Officer #1: Sir! Murder in progress!Supervisor: Ignore that, we are not allowed to act on that information.Officer #1: But sir! The victim is alive and crawling away... slowly... unseen for now...Supervisor: Nope, terror only boy, terror only.

Meanwhile...

Officer #2: Sir! A turban-wearing terrorist is driving a car within 20km of the airport!Supervisor: How do you know it is a terrorist?Officer #2: Why else would a single man drive a car to the airport?Superviso

Whatever it is they're doing, whatever reason it is they give for it, if there's anything about it such that they say 'no, no, we'd never use it that way' - they're planning to do just that, just as soon as they can get away with it.

According to BBC radio4 this evening, it will be used to fight terrorism and any other crime . I tend to think R4 is more accurate than the BBC generally. Its listenership makes the grammar NAZI's on here look tame and the slightest inaccuracy is generally picked up and commented on

No, Worst Case is (for example), police catch politician sneaking into hotel with his mistress, and then the recording gets used to blackmail said politician into supporting some unsavory law. Ever heard of the files of J. Edgar Hoover?

And once in a while, something funny, embarassing, or otherwise destructive to one's social character mysteriously shows up on YouTube or a BBC comedy show take-off of "funny videos". Mind you that you can be on your utmost best behavior in public, and still be a hapless victim caught up in someone else's asshattery.

Yeah no one cares too much about what you do as long as it's legal, moral and ethical. But if it's at least mildly entertaining, it's marketable, regardless of whether it's legal, moral, o

The only people screaming "why didn't you prevent this" are the same ones who support the policies that encourage radical terrorist attacks. Also the same ones who make arguements that are variants of the "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" arguement.

As others have said, the problem isn't that I want to do wrong things.. the problem is, the government gets to decide what is wrong, and change that, whenever they like.

I read your comment out of context, and it scared the shit out of me.:)

If observation is a form of evidence collection, and they only act when they have evidence of a crime, then by now seeing a lot more "evidence", there will be a lot more to act on. Turning otherwise normal people into criminals.

unless it is written in an important document (like a constitution)... oh wait, it can always be changed. Look at what Bush has done with the patriot act. If someone speaks out against him in public, it is now a crime, yet we HAD freedom of speech (to speak out against the leader if we chose to do so).

"Under the new rules... will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime..."

Until, of course, they change the rules again.

Once the nascent terrorist menace of jaywalking, running stoplights, public urination, and petty drug deals is fully acknowledged by your gov't, then yes, those cameras will indeed be used exclusively for national security purposes.

This is a perfect example of how the government creates a system that COULD be abused but has a legitimate purpose initially. The people allow it, so long as it is not used for evil. Then, once the government has it in place, the rules are changed. I'll have to remember this one next time somebody gives the argument that we don't have to worry about the some new PATRIOT-style act.

It's interesting that folks who are so worried about getting killed by a terrorist, they allow things like this to happen - thinking that the terrorist's goal is to kill people.

Then, our Government(s) do things like the article with the blessing of the majority of folks thinking that they're "fighting" terrorism, when in fact, by reacting they way they are, they are playing right into the hands of the terrorists.

The terrorists want to cause terror and make us react in exactly the way we (the majority) have

I really can't blame the Governments too much because if they just say, "Shit happens and we can't panic. We'll work on this and bring these guys to justice. And in the meantime, let's see what we can do to stop this kind of activity in the World." It'll never happen because the general public wouldn't accept it.

Perhaps it could be said, then, that owing to human nature, terrorism is guaranteed to work?

``Then, our Government(s) do things like the article with the blessing of the majority of folks...''I wouldn't be so sure that the majority of folks in the UK approve of this measure.

``The terrorists want to cause terror and make us react in exactly the way we (the majority) have been - giving up our civil rights, running around panicking, and anytime there's even a threat of an attack, our level goes up to "Orange" or some such nonsense.''

So while we should be vigilant we also should be thankful for the freedoms we have, grateful to those who died so that we could have them, and honor those who sacrifice so much to maintain them even to this day.

If you live in the UK or US then you have probably never experienced many MOMENTS of terror, let alone LIVED in terror.

As far as folks in the UK are concerned, I guess you never heard of the IRA. That's the reason that to this day, you will not find any trash cans on most London streets.

Also, if you truly believe that police monitoring TRAFFIC cameras in the UK was one of the goals of the terrorists then I want to have words with your teachers. The goals of terrorists are to get us to be terrified and

>But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

I wonder how long that'll last... which is to say, I wonder for how long they've already been using the data to at least track ordinary crime, just waiting for the general public to give up caring enough that they can use the reams of data they've collected with impunity. Or whether we, over here in the USA, will even find out that this kind of technology exists and is being used.

Anything the government can use against its citizens, it probably already is, and if not, it's only because of technical limitations they're busily trying to fix.

The offices can't even tell the difference between 2 photos. Jean was murdered by London officers after they mislead him with a Muslim terrorist that lived at the same building. An officer took a picture of Jean, sent to the police headquarters, and they said: "that's it, he's our man".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menez es [wikipedia.org]

The London system is the direct source of the system that NYC mayor Bloomberg is trying to install in Manhattan. He says it's for "counter terrorism", though he'll probably morph that excuse into "traffic congestion". And then he'll use the (public spying) info for whatever he wants. Like helping his run for president, by watching which "known whorehouses" his political and economic opponents frequent when they're telling their wives they're "working late again".

These cameras point at public places. Their data is public info. Their use, and abuse, needs to be overseen by representatives of the public. Probably on a time delay to give real police business the advantage for which they're installed. Probably with a process to allow total redaction to protect legitimately sensitive info, even though it was recorded in public, like for example which places are covered (and therefore which places have a blind eye). But without public oversight, they're just Big Brother's public eyeball.

My aim is not a "completely open society". My aim is a very clear, even obvious and perfectly well established, distinction between public and private, between publicity and privacy. And I am for the maximum individual privacy, with the maximum protection from invasion. By private people, by corporations, by governments, by nature, by anyone.But I am for a the maximum openness in the public sector. Which also accommodates some rare, yet real, needs for immediate secrecy. But any secrecy, however fleeting, m

Yes. But it will be back. Just like his attempt on taking office to put tolls on the East River bridges (the only links from Manhattan/Queens) that would have made his budget look better, but would have split the City (except if you're rich, in which case the tolls are still an inconvenience on an already dramatically inconvenient congestion path).I notice that Bloomberg has not bothered trying to restore the commuter tax that his Republican predecessor Giuliani dropped, which used to pay for the City servi

If the criminals are watching the same cameras while the cops are watching them, then the cops lose their advantage. The cops' advantage is mostly superior budget, organization, and numbers of personnel. If equal access to these cameras equalizes that, then criminals will succeed more than they would otherwise. At public expense.There are other, also fairly obvious, consequences. If you try, you can think of them. Only if you're willfully blinding yourself, to the loss of these cameras' utility without some

You think the "if it saves one child" crowd really makes a distinction between national security and "ordinary" crime? Pretty soon the Bobbies are looking at all vehicles. They are under pressure to "solve" crimes. Their definition of "solve" is to get someone convicted. Sure this provision will increase conviction rates. But dont be so sure all convicts would be the real perpetrators.

Why can't they use these traffic cameras to fight crime when they can use standard town center CCTV?

How about they also stop pretending that London webcams malfunction whenever there's a large protest, so that we can keep an eye out for criminal acts committed by the police. After all, if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to worry about.</sarcasm>

Big Brother is watching you, in public! Surely, being in public violates your privacy!

I think it's a bit alarmist to go on about Big Brother, privacy, etc when we're talking about cameras that are in the street, as if you'll be showering there or rubbing butter on your lover.

Of course, a system like this could be abused if you started watching people jay-walk, but then again jay-walking is a crime and if a cop was standing there watching you, you'd also probably get in trouble (actually, probably not, I've never met a cop (personally) who cared about jay-walking in most cases).

To assume that any kind of authority watching you in the street is automatically big brother reminds me of people who live in the woods, want to separate from the US, and act like a bunch of crazies.

Anyone can see you in the street, log you for any purpose, and any cop can stop you and fuck with you. How is this any different than what's been happening for years? Other than it's over a camera now. You can't automatically jump behind "omfg privacy!" when it's in public. There are millions of people to watch, so it's a little naive and alarmist to assume it'll all be used to control your everyday life.

P.S. Sorry if this is hard to read, I keep having to hide the window from nosy co-workers.

Anyone can see you in the street, log you for any purpose, and any cop can stop you and fuck with you. How is this any different than what's been happening for years? Other than it's over a camera now. You can't automatically jump behind "omfg privacy!" when it's in public

You are right, anyone can see you on the street. Where you are wrong is that unlike the general passer by who sees you for a sec and then moves on, the police with cameras can ID you on the street. You have privacy through anonymity. With

They don't need to watch everyone. The cameras can just watch people who have suspicious brown colored skin. Or they can just choose a random 0.1%.Normally, if someone wants to track you in public they need to actually follow you around. The person being followed is not likely to be happy about that. Why is it any better to do it via camera? Shop cameras are individual. The government needs to get subpoenas to look at each one (in theory). Government controlled traffic cameras are linked.

While most people in law enforcement are honest hard working people, some aren't.Some will look for any reason to bust someone of a different race, some people will use information to try and peg a crime on someone, anyone not just the perpetrator.

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

Oh, we don't care about regular crime. Let it happen as much as you want. Heaven forbid that we might use possibly effective tools already in place to actually protect you and your property. Only terrorists are worth actually trying to give our best efforts towards.

You know, all things considered, I suspect the average Britain is in far more danger from ordinary crime, than from terrorism at this moment. And if a Terrorist isn't actually a Terrorist until he commits an act of Terrorism, then he's just an ordinary criminal up to that point, and will be left to purse his merry pursuits. What a crock!

I like the David Brin solution. Have cameras everywhere public, and allow everyone to access them at any time. No more secrets this way, and a lot less suspicion.

Luckily, here in NYC, we just tossed out congestion pricing, which was the distractor for a full surveillance system, paid for by the congestion charge. Luckily, the legislators outside the golden ring of New York City saw this for what it is, a huge commuter tax.
I want the Germans to run my traffic systems, not the British. WTF is up with this idea of total surveillance, and why would any allegedy free country put this crap up ?
Allegedly....

Wherever a police officer could be standing, there could — legally, morally — be a surveillance camera. We just can't afford this many policemen, and the cameras simply allow fewer of them to be (much) more productive.

There will be more of them, and there is nothing wrong with it, unless they peek into what's justifiably considered private — which they could do, but a live policeman is much more likely to.

The problem with Big Brother was not that it was "always watching", but that it w

Personally I would be LESS worried about these cameras being used to prevent ordinary crimes. They can't hold you idenfinately for speeding, and they can't apply any of the other "terrorist" laws if a camera footage could possibly offer circumstantial evidence that you were shoplifting. With the "national security" stuff it is different. They can hold you for a significant amount of time without a conviction, you have few means to appeal your case or have it properly reviewed, and of course, they can keep t

Jaywalking? Sounds like something to do with small birds walking around pecking the ground! Where do the jays come into the equation?We don't have that as a law over here in the UK. First time I found out about it was when I crossed the road in the USA (12 hours after I entered your country) and I heard a police siren, I got shouted at to stand on the side of the road and the police bike cop wrote me a ticket. I knew I'd done something wrong when she pulled out the ticket book, hadn't a clue what I'd done t

It is obvious to everyone in the country that Bair is easily led by anything shiney,
and has no grasp of the concept of truth.

However, the alternative is not
very convincing "We are the party of convictions - most of us have been convicted of fraud or corruption" has
not been a successful campaign for the Tories. And the liberal-democrat plea "More tax is better - pay more tax" is not going to win them a lot of votes.

Yeah, that's right. Kill the Muslims, because all 1.6 million [britishembassy.gov.uk] of them living in the UK must be terrorists!

Don't you even consider that if you tolerate all Muslims being murdered then maybe you'll be next? And that if all Muslims were terrorists then we'd have a full-scale civil war going on?

Just remember that most of those people who have 'invaded' are normal, peaceful, law abiding citizens. Stop reading The Sun and The Daily Mail, pull your head out of your arse and get a grip on reality. Please, for t

The UK uses ANPR for this too. Here you have to get home office type approval for a camera to perform a specific function. Data must be deleted ASAP if no offence can be proved. An ANPR speed camera must remove any non-offending data as soon as possible. A surveillance camera connected to the PNC must delete data within 48 hours unless the plate is black listed. The congestion charging cameras can only transmit a hashed VRM and can only store data if an offence happened. ( so it is possible to track backwar

It's pretty clear that you've never been the victim of police harassment. Or of government harassment. Folks in those positions use every tool possible to harass people they don't like, if they can get away with it.Heck, one woman here in the States reported that the traffic cop who pulled her over ran a check on her recent purchases (thanks to the credit card datamines) and told her what type of underwear she had recently bought.

Let me also guess that you've never been the victim of sexual harassment.

Drug crime goes down while you are in the vicinity. Now you are on camera, so they cxab make you a 'person of interest'They can look for patterns. You happen to behave in a pattern they don't like, bam, 3 hours in a room for questioning.You break a pattern, you become a 'person of interest'

Perhaps there is a murder and the police need to get people for questioning, or are under pressure to put someone away, they can grab the person on the camera they feel a jury would convict with minimal evidence.

An obvious reason this invades privacy is that this sort of surveillance can be used to record where you were at what time, anywhere...so that individuals in the government can go to a database later and paint themselves a pretty picture of exactly where you've been for the last x years...the way things USED to be is that the typical individual onlooker who might casually see you in public really couldn't put such a picture together, so your general pattern of behavior before was catalogued or remembered, e